Originally Posted by
WHBM
Apparently this is an additionally chargeable option. All three major US customers (Southwest, American, United) have bought it. Lion and Ethiopian did not. I wonder about others.
And I wonder how the Boeing sales team went about selling this add-on. Why did the US carriers spend the money and others not. Presumably the sales team offered it to everyone. What were their justifications, and why did the US carriers, no fools at tough negotiations, go for it but not others. And how did the FAA certification let it be optional rather than required. How often, for those that fitted it, did it operate ?
I wonder too about the sales process. It does seem a little odd that carriers in the domestic market opted for an extra element there was no obvious reason to buy (if they didn't know there was a software feature for which it was a single point of failure), while third-world airlines did not. Was it just cost-saving, or did Boeing push a little harder / offer discounts where failures were less likely to be written off as down to poor maintenance / airmanship?